Did Microsoft Invent The iPod? 540
nate.oo writes "If you think Apple Computer's Steve Jobs invented the technology behind the Apple iPod, don't bet your 60GB, 15,000-song model on it. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, patent applications that cover much of the technology associated with the iPod were submitted by Microsoft."
Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course Microsoft invented the iPod....just like they 'invented' the GUI (Apple), Active Directory (Novell), and the TCP-IP stack (BSD).
You would be a fool and a communist to insinuate otherwise (apologies to Bill Hicks).
From TFA:Hey, if you can't beat 'em, litigate 'em to death, I guess...and people bitch and moan when I use the abbreviation M$...
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance- One of the Apple guys swore that the Alto had windows that could overlap, so Apple sat down and figured out how "they" did it. Then, on a subsequent visit, Apple showed it to PARC, and the PARC guys were amazed. They hadn't even thought anyone would want overlapping windows, as they were using multiple large monitors.
Also not to mention that it isn't a copy if the same guys are working on both projects. Many of the PARC people went to Apple when they realized that Apple was actually going to bring something to market.
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:5, Insightful)
Make no mistake, Xerox got paid for the two trips Apple made to their research labs... and they got paid *WELL*.
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Consistent Ripoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people, myself included, find considerable irony in all the posturing about innovation and accusations of copying ideas from these two, when the basic metaphor underlying their desktops is well known to originate elsewhere.
Every now and again we like to point this out. Does this make us Bad People?
but software patents are bad because they disallow the sharing of ideas?
Well, look at it this way. Apple developed the iPod. There were MP3 players before the iPod, but apple popularised them, they did the hard work to develop a market and today they deservedly dominate the field.
And Lo! Here comes Microsoft coveting the market that Apple so carefully built. What is their chosen weapon to assail Apple's dominant position? Software patents.
If MS win the patent appeal, they're going to want royalties from Apple. They'll get a lump sum, and a slice of all future sales. These are costs that Apple will have no choice but to pass on to the customer. Meanwhile, MS has its own competing product which can now undercut Apple considerably since not only are they not paying patent licences, but they can subsidise the price with royalties from Apple. Look ahead 10 years and we can imagine MS owning 90% of the market, with actual iPods being considered technically better but overpriced.
Classic Microsoft.
Now the proponents of swpats tell us that they reward an inventor's hard work. I could argue about that being their proper purpose, but let's go with that for now. So who did all the hard work here? Apple did the cool design, and the marketing. And Apple pulled off the near impossible feat of getting record studios to agree to them selling online music at a price people would be willing to pay. That task also appeared on Bill Gates' todo list; just underneath cutting off his own left foot with a chainsaw.
And what did MS do? Well effectively, they have a big buzzword generator. It takes a technical term from column A, another from column B and one from Column C, and emails them to the Legal Dept. with a note saying "wrap these in the appropriate legalses guys". Then they send the result to the USPTO.
So who has done the hard work here? Apple. Who looks to walk away with the fruits of that hard work? Microsoft.
Instead of allowing people to profit from their own hard work, swpats are a licence for the big players to steal the fruits other people's efforts.
And that's why software patents are "bad". One reason, anyway.
Re:Consistent Ripoffs (Score:3, Insightful)
Alan Kay, the head of the PARC research group in question, seems to agree with you. Here's what he said in the first sentences of his "Early History of Smalltalk" paper:
"Most ideas come from previous ideas. The sixties, particularly in the ARPA community, gave rise to a host of n
Re:Consistent Ripoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be so sure.
They said they'd licence the patents. Depending on the terms, that licence would include a royalty payment, and they could well require backdated payments, which would come as a lump sum. I never said MS would try and block iPods - just push the price up far enough to make a competing MS product more attractive. They could probably even licence them on "reasonable terms". When you're dealing with iPod scale volumes, a small difference can have a huge impact on your margin.
From the same article:
But analysts said the situation could prove troublesome to Apple. The company would no doubt prefer to avoid paying royalties to its rival, especially in a field Apple popularized.
So apparently MS haven't ruled out requiring a royalty.
But even if Microsoft do choose to withhold their hand, we still have to ask why Apple should be dependant of their forbearance. Why MS should be afforded this unearned privilege?
You can say that again (Score:3, Insightful)
And your point is?
immune from fair enforcement of those patents?
I don't recall suggesting anyone be immune to the fair enforcement of anything. The question I raised is whether it is fair that software patents be awarded in the first place since they do not supply the benefits claimed by their supporters, and since they make possible a whole range of new tactics for unfair competition.
innovative marketing has nothing at all
Re:bags of hot air (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't recall anyone saying that Apple deserves patents on MP3 player technology, but just that Microsoft sure doesn't.
Or makes them immune from fair enforcement of those patents?
If those patents are filed after the product is already on the market, not to mention the numerous
Re:Consistent Ripoffs (Score:3, Insightful)
Creative's never going to gain any market share trying to add 340 features to a device. They are going to lose it by putting out shoddy merchandise. You can't compete solely on price
Re:Consistent Ripoffs (Score:3, Funny)
Ghastly term, but it's a proper pain typing "software patents" eighty two times in a discussion like this.
Perhaps you be interested in cross licencing against my "Method and Apparatus for Denoting Excerpted Content Using Italics and Elipses" :)
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is still a good deal of gray area as to who should own the technology. For once, I'd like to see Microsoft playing second fiddle. It doesn't have to dominate EVERYTHING.
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:2)
When did 'BSD' invent the TCP-IP stack?
Last I checked, Apple was not the inventor of the GUI and BSD was not even from the right university for TCP-IP....
You are the fool.
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:2)
I wasn't listing the original inventors..I was listing the people Microsoft lifted the ideas from.
Other people figured that out...why couldn't you?
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft had seen the windowing idea at Xerox PARC. The idea came from there.
Nice attempt at historical revisionism, but no. Try looking here [answers.com] or here [osu.edu] for a quick history lesson.
only a small part of the Windows TCP/IP stack was taken from BSD.
I'm confused...are you arguing with me or corroborating my statements? Come back when you've made up your mind.
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:4, Interesting)
You should read this article, it's very enlightening:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/6/19/05641/735
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:5, Interesting)
It appears to be a journalists "what if" scenario, saying what COULD happen. It's like all the bitching about MS suing Open Source providers for patent infringement, yet it never seems to happen.
Methinks you're getting yourself worked up into a froth over fabrication.
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:2)
That means mucho denero for both companies, and Apple only got to *look* at the PARC stuff.
Re:Did M$ invent the iPod? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing to see here... move along... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nothing to see here... move along... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing to see here... move along... (Score:3, Insightful)
Old? (Score:2)
This is worse than cable TV
Apple made it available to buyers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple made it available to buyers (Score:2)
Plagiarism (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Plagiarism (Score:2)
HJ
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Credit where credit's due (Score:5, Informative)
Contents of the article aside, such an assumption would be wrong, Steve Jobs didn't invent the iPod - Jeff Robin [wikipedia.org] did.
Re:Credit where credit's due (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Credit where credit's due (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Credit where credit's due (Score:2, Offtopic)
Bill Gates is pretty ordinary, but that was a long time ago.
Now I see Sergey Brin, Bruce Perens, Theo De Raadt, and David H???????? Hanson. Plus there's people that just happen to have the same names as famous people in non-geek circles, such as Dave Thomas. And I have a Sysadmin named Martha Stewart.
I hope Jeff Robin gets a little fame for his invention. It's no small achievement.
And for those of you who think it isn't an inventi
Of Course! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Of Course! (Score:2)
Here's that link [slashdot.org] you were too lazy to include.
And yes, it is funny. ^_^
Invention.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, Microsoft's just trying to get whatever loose patent they can get so they can selectively use it to pressure their competitors.
You can always tell if Microsoft is sweating because of you if they take out a patent on something you've built as soon as you issue the first press release.
Re:Invention.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Invention.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The more I hear about Edison, the less inspiring he appears to be. Wasn't he the one that electrocuted animals to disprove the theories of Nikola Tesla?
Re:Invention.. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I heard was that he wanted to discredit alternating current (AC) power, and electrocuting animals was his way of doing it. Edison favored direct current (DC) power. The problem is that given the technology of the time, and it is still largely true today, due to the physics involved, AC is generally a better long-distance electrical power transmission method.
I'm not sure how stable Tesla was, but he was right about AC.
Re:Invention.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Physics and You (Score:4, Informative)
That's no longer exclusively true. And power loss is directly proportional to resistance but proportional to the square of the current, so doubling the voltage in a circuit cuts those losses much larger than half.
Meanwhile, low frequency AC transmission has all sorts of losses over long hauls due to reactive coupling to earth and to the atmosphere, and these losses vary even depending on the weather.
Rectifiers and inverters can be made very efficient these days, and long haul powerlines increasingly may carry 750KVDC or more on them... that's direct current, not alternating.
The higher voltage DC transport is more efficient, you see... but now we have the technology to exploit it.
What they don't teach in school about Edison (Score:2)
This is true. wikipedia info including a video of the actual killing [wikipedia.org].
Also read about the AC vs DC [ieee-virtual-museum.org] battle. Edison even tried to coin his competitor's name as a verb meaning "electrocution". Quite the sicko.
Re:Invention.. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, Edison electrocuted many animals, but it wasn't to disprove Tesla's theories. Rather, it was to 'demonstrate' that AC electricity (Tesla's system), was more lethal than Edison's preferred DC. Edison put on elaborate shows in which he electrocuted horses, dogs, elephants, and just about any other animal he could get his hands on (he was also known for paying children 25 cents for each stray dog they could bring him). Edison claimed that while AC electricity was obviously lethal, DC was not (which is patently false).
Interesting that Edison's name is synonomous with electricity even today, although the electricity we use in our homes is Tesla's alternating current.
Re:Invention.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Invention.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What Apple did was create a beautiful device, something that was more of a fashion accessory than a geek toy. That was the revolution; that was what Apple "invented"; and that's why even though you can buy a similar mp3 player with more functionality for less money, iPods remain king. Apple didn't invent any one piece of the technology--they brought together existing technology in a functionally beautiful way, and wrapped it all up in an aesthetically beautiful package.
Dlugar
Re:Invention.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks.
Re:Invention.. (Score:3, Informative)
According to them, if you want to use long file names on flash media, you have to licence their IP. For $.25 a unit, up to $250,000 per licencee.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, the patent [theregister.com] seems to be invalid.
Although this first attempt at patent extortion seems to have failed, I expect we will see Microsoft try again soon.
Re:Invention.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, maybe we can do that later. We'll do the Nostradamus "they're doing X so then they'll do Y because of Z" theoretical paranoid-type of discussion you probably enjoy very much. In the meantime, what part of:
Did you manage to miss back there?
Re:Invention.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue of Software patents is a touchy one, and MS is desparate to have it approved. They even went as far as blackmailing the government of Denmark. They know that it wouldn't be constructive to give any extra ammo to it's opponents at such a critical time.
The goal of MS is to subsume OpenSource or extinguish it. Remember the failed MS email standard that contained both a submarine patent and licensing that strictly forbid GPL developement? MS allowed that technology to die stillborn rather than bend and allow GPL use of any of it's patents (as IBM does, see here [ibm.com]).
Once software patent laws are in place and enforcible, do you honestly think that MS would not use Software Patents to toast the one competitor it could never control/buy/extinguish, Open Source and the GPL?
Re:Invention.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would believe your insightful argument if it actually addressed my original question and - more importantly - it wasn't Microsoft getting hit every other month by IP farms and submarine patents and having to fight or pay them off in order to do business. I'd buy it if it wasn't for the fact that IBM has about 10 times more patents that Microsoft, and
Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword (Score:5, Funny)
That... doesn't make sense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or am I misreading this? Did they file a patent for something that vaguely described a system of some sort used in the iPod? That wouldn't really surprise me, seeing how they've recently tried to patent a method for highlighting numerical data with a box.
Re:That... doesn't make sense. (Score:2)
Re:That... doesn't make sense. (Score:2)
Is any body else... (Score:2)
I don't mean to troll here, but is any of this really that significant? It seems to me that all the 'who-did-it-first' business is all just loose speculation..
Homer: You can't like... own a potato... it's one of God's creatures.
Bad Article (Score:5, Insightful)
On the brighter side, the not so subtle combination of Microsoft, Apple, vague patents and the iPod should make for a orgiastic troll feeding frenzy in the comments. And Techweb got some more traffic and hopefully some ad revenue. Hooray.
Better article (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/10/microsoft
Although the posted one is so vague, it might be talking about something else.
That's like saying (Score:2, Funny)
Re:That's like saying (Score:2)
Re:That's like saying (Score:2)
Re:That's like saying (Score:2)
Re:That's like saying (Score:5, Informative)
Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. He said he backed funding (repeatedly and against republican opposition) for the Arpanet which became the internet.
He was misquoted deliberately (and repeatedly) by a group of right wing press until the lie became main stream. So now you can find many reasonable moderate people who believe he originally made the claim.
Re:That's like saying (Score:2, Troll)
I think that's pretty clear. Obviously, he was a greasy politician trying to take credit for the work of others. Maybe from where he was at, it made sense, but that just shows you how out-of-touch people in politics are.
I have the quote in MP3 (Score:3, Informative)
"...during my service in the United States (uh) Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet..."
Re:That's no misquote. Here's your context (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to think it means "invent". That is just a narrow interpretation.
Gore meant "secure funding for and push for its development", which a very good definition.
Read up higher in this very thread. See how it says that "Tesla's AC beat out Edison's DC". You could say that "George Westinghouse took the initiative in creating the power grid" even though George invented nothing. Instead, George listened to Tesla, agreed that it was important, and funded him.
In short,
Does the patent office... (Score:5, Funny)
(Yeah, my tinfoil hat just fell off.)
What's this talk of denting? (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, Microsoft hasn't been able to dent the Apple iPod dominance...
Exactly which devices would be doing the denting, or is this a reference to the music players that Microsoft has released in an alternate universe?
Apple had it on shelves before the MS patent (Score:5, Informative)
I remember too. My friend bought the absolute first gen ipod.. a klunky 5 gig job... back in late 2001.
TFA can stick this FUD where it belongs, thank you very much.
Re:further clarification: (Score:3, Informative)
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=158903&t hreshold=-1&commentsort=3&tid=181&mode=thread&pid= 13310089#13310287 [slashdot.org]
I'm too lazy to type it in a second time for someone who can't be bothered to either
a) distinguish between publishing a research paper and a patent application or
b) understand how patents work
Arguably Apple Didn't Invent the iPod (Score:2)
From wikipedia...
Of course, the argument stems from whether the time of invention is when the idea is conceived, when the product
What a moot point (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless Microsoft somehow patented the idea of a well designed stylish mp3 player their patent is so laughably easy to dismiss with prior art it stands as just another example of how lazy, inept & stupidty-riddled the US Patent Office is.
not again... (Score:2, Interesting)
Winamp + 486 (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft made the iPod. (Score:3, Funny)
Saddam had WMDs he was going to give to Bin Laden.
Big Brother Loves You.
Invent? (Score:2)
what's the difference? (Score:2)
And the patents themselves are pretty iffy. If you only allow Microsoft's narrow claims, than Apple probably doesn't infringe and could trivially work around them. If you allow Microsoft's broadest claims, then they just patented finding other songs you like based on a bunch of examples--a trivial and obvious idea implemented by many people.
Patents really on
And slashdot reposts the same BS (Score:2)
Apple is in serious trouble (Score:3, Funny)
Steve Jobs invented the iPod? (Score:2, Insightful)
He didn't. A team of engineers at another company did and sold the finished product to Apple. He just took the credit.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Lightbulb strikes again (Score:2)
Correction (Score:3, Funny)
+------+ +--------+
don't bet your | 60GB |, | 15,000 |-song model on it.
+------+ +--------+
if only it could manipulate MP3s (Score:2, Insightful)
yes, it would be very nice if the iPod could manipulate MP3s, not just play them. Or at least fast forward/rewind within a song/track, now that would be very nice for longer songs, think those BBC Beethoven tracks, and ebooks when it suddenly gets lound on the train/bus/where ever and you miss something. I'm yet to see a portable device that can do that, but I've only used the iPod mini Zaurus5500
They forgot the "Via a computer network" (Score:5, Funny)
Oh boy will they feel stupid when I patent an "portable, pocked-sized multimedia asset player via a computer network"!
MS doesn't invent *anything* (Score:3, Insightful)
Just look at all the slashdot articles. We see one about every 2 weeks for MS trying (succceeding?) to patent things there's blindingly obvious prior art for. Nothing new here. Tomorrow they'll try to patent the computer case, using about 850 words to describe "a metal box you put a computer in" in such complex verbage that the patent clerk will think "I have no idea what he's talking about and have never heard ANYTHING like that before so it MUST be original". *STAMP* ("Approved")
Not that it counts for much, but I will at least say they don't spend all their time chasing down "patent infringers" for their thousands of silly patents. I think they do it more for defense than offense, unlike some we've seen here recently.
We just had this bloody story. (Score:3, Interesting)
Render unto us a grand holy rotating break, Taco. At least read your own damn articles before accepting a new one. Or at least apply some damn common sense when you get funky spin like these.
Re:Why are software patents bad? (Score:2)
Get your neighbors to sign petitions against any elected official that is about to vote on any type of legislation that would increase the power of software/all patenting. Likewise, get them to sign petitions in favor of signing legislation in favor of dampening or removing software/all patents.
Re:Why are software patents bad? (Score:2)
I smell another great "Ask Slashdot" entry coming.
Re:Why are software patents bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am particularly interested in patent law, though I am nothing more than a computer programmer, much less a lawyer.
Groklaw is a very good place to get more of a handle on some of what software patents are about. I have yet to come across a good all-around resource regarding the state of software patents, so I end up perusing the patent office's site quite often.
To answer your main question, software patents are thought to be a "bad thing" because patents were designed to protect an implementation of an idea...Edison didn't patent "creating light with an electrical device", he patented the incandescent lightbulb. Software makes this otherwise simple model a mess, because there is no clear line between the *effect* of something, and it's *implementation* in software. Sure, there are a bunch of clean cut cases, but there are also a lot of muddy cases.
Worse, software patents are very easy to abuse. For example, companies have patented things like the "double click", scrollbars, and drop-down menus. These days, it becomes a veritable mine-field of patents to avoid when writing even the simplest of GUI applications.
In one of the most astonishing software patent debacles, a shadow-rendering trick presented by John Carmack thereafter known as "Carmack's Reverse" was patented by a company later bought by Creative (of Sound Blaster fame) and used a scant week before Doom 3's release date to strong-arm Carmack into coding EAX support into his Doom 3 engine to avoid litigation.
The idea that a company spends lots of money to develop algorithms, and that those algorithms should be protected is a good one. The problem is that the vast majority of software patents are not used in cases like that; they are used in cases where a company likes to lie in wait for their competitors, and only after a competitor becomes a serious threat to they negotiate with their patent portfolio. Because patents (unlike copyrights) cost so much to apply for (not just application fees, but technical writing and legal fees), the software patent system keeps companies like Microsoft in their monopolistic lifestyle to which they have become accustomed, often at the expense of their competitors and, ultimately, the consumer.
Free software in particular is a fundamentally generous act, and is capable of providing great benefits to areas of the world that would not otherwise be able to afford computing. Similarly, it frees those who choose to use it in first-world countries from the monopoly that Microsoft enjoys, allowing us to run operating systems that do not require re-registration when the hardware in the comuter is altered, or keeping track of registration keys. But Free Software's future is in jeopardy because of the patent system that benefits the large corporations. You would be hard pressed to find a piece of free software that doesn't violate someone else's software patent one way or another.
There are many approaches to correcting the system, but one of the most obvious would be to raise the bar for what qualifies as innovative enough to deserve a patent. The article earlier today about highlighting numbers is a perfect example: a concept so simple that it seems like a good excercise for a beginner's book on C or Java, not a patent for a multi-billion dollar corporation to be filing. The ease with which something can be programmed is not the sole measure by which we should judge a patent, but it is a starting point. Other factors might include things like the amount of resources it would take to develop such a design.
At some point we need to admit to ourselves that our notions of intellectual property must change in an era where media can be so freely copied and exchanged. The nature of the economies that support industries resting on intellectual properties must shift, perhaps acknowledging that intellectual property should not be a luxury, but a commonplace product in most everyone's lives. This would allow more people to enjoy t
Re:Why are software patents bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
It wasn't until the early 1990s that the catholic church exonerated Galileo for his honesty about some such things. Showing how ignorant and dishonest some can be.
THIS IS IMPORTANT:
The exoneration came as a result of the church losing followers over this denial of honesty of reality. Important because it sets an example and solution direction for the software patents deception.
Software is NOT patentable. There is no comprimise here, only frauds. Those in denial of honesty about software trying to convince others of their dillusions.... pretty much most of the computer industry,
This is no differnt than the suppression of the hindu arabic decimal system and its, how can nothing have value, zero place holder, by the roman catholic church in its persistant elitism of the roman numeral system of accounting and math.
Today we know better, that there are btter ways to do math, simpler, easier, etc...
Software is no different, only the symbols used go beyond numerical assigned value...
What is not patentable, universally accepted, include physical phenomenon, natural law, abstract ideas. Software is composed of all of these, is created and works on the foundation of these. Even the idea of algorythims (something else really not patentable and has been on the list of "NOT PATENTABLES") is itself of these top primary things not patentable.
Copyright is appropriate, so software is not without some form of IP protection.
The fact of the matter is: As soon as we get past the roman numeral way of programming, programming will become as common place as the application of the hindu arabic decimal system is. Even being taught in primary school.
Software is the automation of complexity so as to make that complexity usable and reusable to the users of that complexity through a simplified interface, like how a calculator automates mathmatics, simplifying and providing accurate calculation, as opposed to doing it in a non-automated manner, manually..
Software creation is also recursive in this. Rarely does any programmer not use the automations of another before them, in their creation of some program.
Automation via abstraction is a natural product of conscious beings, as it take conscious ability to comprehend abstractions of such a level to enable automation.
In other words, its not only our natural human right, but duty, to make use of abstractions that allow us to advance our understanding of reality and control over it.
Yes the economy, the incentive behind the deception of the fraudlent promotion of "software patents" needs to change to remove the incentive to try to, or continue to, deceive the public.
World economy, along with other related factors, is reaching a level of well being that its getting to be time to step off the current stepping stone of incentives to advance and onto the next one. I believe Free Open Source Software is mans first recognition of that next stepping stone.
Software patents are bad because the very essence of them is dishonest and anti-productive of man and his contribution to human advancement.
It really is that simple.
Software patents in the US came about thru small courtroom squablings of who the best lier/fraud was. Who was best able to use "Abstractions" to mislead others.
In Europe, not only was the european public allowed in on the decission process, but the world. OPEN, again OPEN, to the intelligence of the population.
If it affects the population, then the population only rightfully has a say. Otherwise its not being honest about human ability and intelligence as a whole.
The US is way out of line and being frauduelent.
Re:Why are software patents bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Use copyright.
There are even, believe it or not, companies which don't release the source code for their commercial software, and this appears to be completely legal!
"At some point we need to admit to ourselves that our notions of intellectual property must change in an era where media can be so freely copied and exchanged."
Why?
"This would allow more people to enjoy the fruits of the labor of the few, while maintaining the authors in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed."
Greedy shit. The authors should live the lifestyle they deserve based on the amount of skill, training, experience and hard work they apply.
Yes, I am one of those authors. No-one owes me a living.
Re:Steve jpbs inventor? (Score:5, Funny)
Are you crazy?!? Did you see the new fangled mouse he just invented? It has THREE buttons!
Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, MS probably invented it (Score:5, Insightful)
On what basis did you arrive at this? Diamond Multimedia was the first to market such a device in the late 90s.
Also the patent that is cited is extremely vague in its actual implementation. For the most part the AutoDJ patent affects software like WinAmp, RealPlayer, and iTunes more. The patent seems to cover a process on how computer algorithms might select the next song to in a list based on what the user has listened to in the past. Nowhere does the patent mention or reference how the songs are played like a mp3 player, CD player, etc.
Re:AutoDJ is half baked, unrelated to iPod or iTun (Score:5, Informative)
Does your theory involve actually knowing what eigenvalues are, or are you just making shit up?
At best I'm guessing you're trying to imply some sort of principal component analysis [wikipedia.org] across properties of the tracks, which involves finding eigenvalues (and eigenvectors) of the covariance matrix. That doesn't really make sense though because most of the properties are categorical (artist, genre, title, album) so PCA is hardly going to be meaningful, let alone help songs "flow together".
Other alternatives include trying to do some level of correlation across the Fourier transform [wikipedia.org] of the actual music (end of one track correlating with beginning of next), but aside from failing to account for volume and beat information, it also fails to have anything whatsoever to do with eigenvalues.
Finally you could take Fourier transforms, statistics on mean and variance of volume, beats per minute etc., and the user rating of the track, as one huge multidimensional space, throw it through PCA and select the closest track in the re(multidimensional)scaled space, which would actually give some semblance of "flow" and even use eigenvalues somewhere in the whole process... but that's an awfully large amount of heavy lifting to do compared to just picking a track at random which can do a surprisingly good job.
Jedidiah.